What does ‘Born Slippy’ mean?
If William Burroughs’ cut-up method and associated philosophy, as detailed in The Third Mind, is anything to go by, one can find more artistic value and significance in nonsense. You may view some developments in modern art as pretentious and disconnected. Still, it’s hard to deny the allure of abstract wordplay championed by the likes of David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Thom Yorke and Underworld vocalist Karl Hyde.
When writing the lyrics for Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Underworld’s techno masterpiece of 1994, Hyde made profitable use of his surroundings. Not only were his mellifluous and engaging lyrical musings inspired by overheard conversations, but they were actually transplanted from the urban environment they sought to evoke. After listening to conversations on public transport for a few months and jotting ideas down, Hyde employed Burroughs’ cut-up technique to rearrange snippets and motifs into pleasing streams of consciousness.
The album’s resounding success demanded much more electrifying work in this realm. As composers Rick Smith and Darren Emerson continued to develop Underworld’s sonic approach, Hyde set about scouring society for more lyrical inspiration. Striking a similar peak with a newfound fanbase of ravers was Underworld’s best-known single, ‘Born Slippy (Nuxx)’. Released in 1995, initially as a B-side to ‘Born Slippy’, the track became world famous after Danny Boyle used it to soundtrack his 1996 movie Trainspotting.
Though Hyde liked to mine his words from the urban playground and create abstract lyrical forms, he usually pursued tangible metaphors to imbue the songs with meaning. As an instrument complementary to Smith’s momentous beats, Hyde’s vocals could evoke vivid imagery and have drunken hoards shouting, “Lager, lager, lager, lager”. As this famous refrain from ‘Born Slippy (Nuxx)’ suggests, the song pertains to alcoholism. “Heroin, heroin, heroin, heroin” may have been a better fit for Trainspotting, but it certainly wouldn’t have had the same ring to it.
The fragmented lyrics repeat the word “boy” across several sprawling verses with keywords and phrases like “numb angel”, “lipstick”, “tears”, “girls”, and “chemicals”, which implant snapshot images of a heady night out on the tiles. As the story develops, Hyde injects more clarity into the narrative with the culturally reflective passage: “And look at me mum / Squatting pissed in a tube-hole at Tottenham Court Road / I just come out of The Ship / Talking to the most / Blonde I ever met / Shouting, ‘Lager lager lager lager'”.
The next part of the “lager” chant repeats the mysterious phrase “Mega mega white thing”. It is unclear what this line refers to; some suggest that it is the white blindness of intoxication, while others interpret it as a strange way of referring to the blonde female mentioned a couple of lines prior.
While we can interpret the song’s unconventional phrasing in any way we like, Hyde based it on stark, sobering reality. “We used to go out drinking in Soho and I ended up in the Ship on Wardour Street. All the lyrics were written on that night,” Hyde recalled in a 2006 conversation with The Guardian. “A drunk sees the world in fragments, and I wanted to recreate that.”
Hyde continued, revealing that the song’s pacing “was inspired by Lou Reed’s New York album and Sam Shepard’s Motel Chronicles“.
He added: “I was into flash photography as well, so I was walking around Soho with a notebook and camera, just observing things. In those days, I’d open the book whenever a musical idea inspired me. Rick came up with a rhythm, and I started singing over it. The vocals were done in one take. When I lost my place, I’d repeat the same line; that’s why it goes, ‘lager, lager, lager, lager.'”
After ‘Born Slippy’ became Underworld’s best-selling single in 1995, filmmaker Danny Boyle approached Hyde and Smith asking if he could use it in Trainspotting. Initially, they declined, unwilling to associate with a project that glorifies drug addiction. “Myself and Rick weren’t part of a druggy culture; we didn’t see the association with our music,” Hyde told Q on another occasion. “So we said no to the request as we didn’t like the analogy that we thought was being made. That’s the last time we’ve ever said no to Danny Boyle!”
A tenacious Boyle ultimately got the band on board after demonstrating how his adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel was an anti-drug commercial, if anything. “Danny convinced us to go to the edit suite, and we realised it was the opposite of glorification,” Hyde continued. “It perfectly put the song back into context.”
The first time Underworld performed ‘Born Slippy (Nuxx)’ live, Hyde’s “heart sank” because members of the audience lifted their cans of beer for the “lager” refrain. He hadn’t intended the song as a celebration of alcohol and found the reaction difficult to embrace from the depths of his struggle with alcoholism through the 1990s. “The song was a cry for help,” he noted. “The film redressed the balance, gave the song resonance.”
Finally, readers might wonder where the final piece of the puzzle is. When explaining the meaning of the song, Hyde noted that its title has very little in connection to the narrative within: “Why Born Slippy? It was a greyhound we won money on.”
